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Census Reports

These reports are based on the results of the 2002 Census recently published by the Central Statistics Office. The Census provides a snapshot of the country’s population on a particular date, in the case of the 2002 Census this date was the 28th April 2002.

City sector analysis is based on the Central Statistics Office’s SAPS (Small Area Population Statistics). The City is divided into 6 sectors for the purpose of this analysis: the City Centre, the North East, North West, South West, South Centre and South East. These sectors do not correspond to the sector breakdowns for Local Government elections in the City, which have no City Centre sector. There are many benefits to having a separate City Centre sector for the purpose of analysis. Perhaps most importantly, it has a distinct and different character to the other more suburban sectors. In addition to this, there has been a number of planning policies and schemes specifically focused on this area and therefore information on changing trends within the sector can help in assessing the success of these schemes.

The State’s population has aged by a year since 1996 resulting in an average age of 35.1 years in 2002. Non-Irish nationals now account for 5.8% of the population. Family sizes are getting smaller and six out of ten people now live in urban areas. Both the young and old dependency ratios have continued to decline.

Between 1996 and 2002, the State’s population increased by 8% from 3,626,087 to 3,917,203. Leinster’s population increased by 9.4% and exceeded 2 million for the first time. The largest increase in Dublin was in the Fingal administrative area (17%). It was in the Greater Dublin Area that the greatest increases in population were recorded. Meath (22.1%) registered the biggest percentage increases of any county countrywide while Kildare, with a 21.4% increase, was not far behind. Connacht’s population increased by 7.2% strongly based on significant population increases in both Galway City and County. Munster’s population recorded a 6.5% rise, increasing from 1,033,903 to 1,100,614. The three Ulster counties in the Republic also recorded population increases.